Denmark braced for terror plot trial against 4 Swedes

Four Swedes accused of plotting a revenge attack on a newspaper that printed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad will go on trial Friday in Denmark, forcing the normally placid Nordic country to revisit an event it would rather put to rest. The four men – Swedes living in Denmark – are charged with terrorism after allegedly planning an armed attack inside the Copenhagen-based offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which published 12 cartoons of the prophet in 2005, sparking riots in Muslim countries and calls for revenge. Swedish and Danish intelligence officials said they had followed the men for months and tailed their rental car from Stockholm before arresting three of them – Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm and Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri – in December 2010 at an apartment near the Danish capital. The fourth, Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti, left the car and returned to Stockholm, were he was arrested. The men are also charged with possession of illegal weapons. Prosecutors have described the four as Islamic militants who wanted to frighten Danish society with a shooting spree. If found guilty of terrorism charges the four men could face some 16 years in prison, while prosecutors say they will ask that the men be expelled from Denmark after serving the sentence. The trial will be the second major criminal process involving the controversial cartoons over the past year. Early in 2011 a Danish court declared a Somali man guilty of terrorism for breaking into the home of a Danish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet. Wielding an ax, the man entered Kurt Westergaard’s home in the northwestern town of Aarhus, though the cartoonist managed to avoid injury by locking himself inside a panic room. The Somali man was eventually sentenced to nine years in prison. The Danes’ trial is expected to last two months, with a verdict expected in mid-June.